NICARAGUA Women and the "apron economy" SEVEN YEARS after the victory of the revolutionary forces in July 1979, the Sandinista government have published a report analysing the situation of women in Nicaragua today. (See box.) Women are now an integral part of the workforce, and equality for women is written into the new constitution adopted in January this year. But many difficulties still remain, both in law and in women's daily lives.
With so many men involved in the war against the counter-revolutionary contras, women are often the sole breadwinners for their families. With few qualifications, many of them turn to the so-called informal sector, or black economy, to scratch a living. This is particularly the case in the capital, Managua, where nearly 45% of the active population work in the informal sector.
The following article is based on a study by Nicaraguan sociologist Aida Redondo on the position of women in relation to the informal sector. It was published in Pensamiento propio, a review published by the Regional Coordination for Economic and Social Studies (CRIES).
overall improvement in the situation of the people, and where the distribution of property is based on great inequalities."
How, then, can we. explain the recent expansion of the informal sector in revolutionary Nicaragua? To answer this question and understand better the features of this phenomenon, it is useful to go back a bit in history.
Under the Somoza regime, a lot of women - especially peasant women - had to supplement the wages of their husbands, who were left without work during the "dead season," or simply did not earn enough to support their families. In other cases, single women or abandoned wives brought in the only income they had to sustain themselves and their children. Migration to the cities
In both Nicaragua and other Latin American and Caribbean countries, migration to the cities in search of means of earning a better living has been an integral part of this phenomenon.
In 1979, the revolution began dismantling this old economic and social mode. In these nast six vears
Long before it was given its economic baptism, the phenomenon dubbed the "informal sector" was known in the slang of several countries by such terms as "chiripeo" and "rebusque" ["game of chance," "rumaging"] that give more of the flavor of this activity. The various names, however, describe the same complex reality -the activities of "the workers who produce, rework or sell by their own efforts in forms of petty industry, petty commerce, crafts and services."
An outstanding feature is the participation of women in this sector. In Brazil, 56% of those involved in it are women. In Mexico, it is 40%, and in the Caribbean, 50%. In Nicaragua, women make up about 65% of those involved in the informal sector. And, according to a study of the markets made in 1982, women account for 83.8% of retail sellers and 42% of wholesale sellers.
It has been pointed out that the informal sector "arises in societies where there are no general policies governing production and distribution of income, where the economic strategy is directed to growth and not toward a real development whose fundamental objective would be an social model. In these past six years, the government has enacted measures of economic policy, carried out an agrarian reform, and launched actions in the in the areas of education, culture, public health, transport and so on designed to increase production and achieve a rational distribution of income.
However, the close tie between this model and the world market, as well as the war of aggression waged against us by the US, has placed serious obstacles in the way of turning agri-industry toward a course of accumulating capital that at the same time would expand employment and satisfy the basic needs of the population.
In Nicaragua, a majority of street traders are women (DR)
tion.
Moreover, some official measures -indiscriminate granting of credit, currency incentives to producers, handing over dollars to importers (buhoneros) and the subsidies on fares and foods - favored the expansion of the informal sector.
The government's very limited ability to assure a supply of the basic products at official prices promoted speculation and stock jobbing, which became a source of higher incomes for thousands of people. A long chain of middle people between the producers and the consumers also helped increase the number of small merchants.
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Thus, this subsector has an average annual growth of 23.9%. In part, this growth has been fed by skilled workers, technicians and professionals who have switched over to more lucrative jobs as merchants.
Besides offering higher incomes, the informal sector provides other advantages: It offers job opportunities for a workforce with a low level of skills emigrating from the country to the city. It is easy to get into, since it requires little or no capital. The working hours and conditions are more flexible. •Women want to be free and independent
Because of their lack of schooling, their need to contribute to the support of the home and at the same time look after children, women tend to go mainly into this sector.
In her study, Redondo noted a high percentage of women between 25 and 44 years of age. The majority of them - 70% - were heads of families, and 27% had husbands but in fact provided the family's principal economic support through their activity in the informal sector.
Through their personal experience, these women managed to overcome the belief that they needed a husband to survive. "I prefer not having a husband, because that way I am free and independent." Likewise, they overcame the notion that they had to submit to their husband's will.
These women display a self-esteem that comes from being workers and women of great fortitude, who have been able to provide for themselves and their children through their own labor, despite difficulties and misfortune.
"Women need to work and not to live under the thumb of a man. I don't need one. Only when I have things to communicate to someone. What men give is little, and they take more than they give."
However, personal affirmation alone does not solve other concrete problems, such as childcare. The average age of the children of these working women is four. Although the majority were over seven, others were small. These small children are left in the care of some family member.
The Centros de Desarrolla Infantil (CDIs - Child Development Centers) do not meet the needs of these women because their hours are incompatible with the working day of women whose toil begins at 5am. "Besides making enough to survive, we can take care of our children, when we do not have our children, when we do not have anyone to look after them." The possibility of looking after the little ones while they work is another one of the attractions of this activity.
The amount of schooling these women have is not as low as the average for the sector - 42% have completed up to three years of secondary school. As for their schoolage children, they have a real chance to study, and among their adult children, we find technicians and even professionals. This is another aspect of the informal sector here that differs from other countries where the levels of subsistence barely make it possible to keep children alive, much less set them on a road to a better future. On the other hand, these women, even in Managua, lack any preparation to take on specialized jobs.
The study demonstrated that these women came into the working world in various ways. About 33% started as domestics (maids, cooks, ironers). Some 32% were peasants and agricultural workers. Others tried to be seamstresses or saleswomen in stores. But the majority opted to become merchants owing to the possibility for improving their income and "rebellion against working for a boss or for a wage."
Women working in agriculture now do many jobs once reserved for men (DR)
Like other Latin-American peddlars, some started selling products -tortillas, atol [a non-alchoholic corn flour drink] pinol [a popular drink made from germinated maize crushed in water], etc., with little or no capital. Many of them were trained by their mothers, who were in the business before. Others had relatives or friends that helped them, giving them products to sell or teaching the "technique" of selling their stock in trade. "In Nicaragua, we call it the apron economy"
The entry of women technicians and professionals into petty trade is a common phenomenon not only in Managua, and it has distinctive expressions - from secretaries who sell their goods between dictations, to professionals shifting from their offices to the market.
The view of a female bookeeper illustrates the possibilities the informal sector offers for the unemployed or underemployed population. "As a bookkeeper, I could not support
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International Viewpoint 23 March 1987
myself and my children. Before, under Somoza, you didn't make so much because to get work you needed contacts. Today, you can get work, but you earn less at it than selling."
Doing their business as an extension of the family economy, the peddlar women do not keep accounts of their sales and profits: "In Nicaragua, we say that we have an apron economy. You put it into an apron pocket and take it out."
For their calculations, they base themselves on their surplus each week, and the general tendency is for the capital to keep shrinking. The peddlars of fruit and vegetables are considered the poorest, because of the kind of produce they sell. They do not have much of a profit margin, because part of their merchandise ends up in the garbage cans, since it is perishable.
Despite that and the debts that they sometimes get into, the waste of meat and milk products, the lack of access to the basic grains, and their complaints that they hardly ear enough to live, these peddlars have incomes that equal, if not exceed, those of technical professionals.
Peddlars of fruit and vegetables, and of groceries, face difficulties in getting these products and resort to the black market, thereby exposing themselves more to fines and penalties.
Despite the fact that they criticize the official policies, they also support the revolution, and even suggest possible alternatives for solving the problem of growing inflation:
"This rise in prices is a result of the fact that we have to buy on the black market in order to sell to the consumers, who cannot get these products through secure channels. This will end when the government lets us sell our products again. What we need to do is distribute these products among ourselves and have police control the prices, as they do with meat."
There is a fear among these women of being driven out of business. A lot of them say that they are not prepared to do any other kind of work, and that spending so many years in trade had made this activity an integral part of their lives.
"We worry about being forced out of business. We feel that trading is a part of us. The happy time that we spend here will be taken away from us. Now we feel more like working people and more united."
Contrary to the stereotyped image that exists of merchants as reactionaries, speculators, and so on, Redondo offers a more rounded view.
Many of the women interviewed participated in the insurrection, and today belong to one or another mass organization, have a high estimation 24
The changing role of Nicaraguan women THE WOMEN'S Bureau of the government has published a report on the situation of women today in Nicaraguan society. Since the overthrow of Somoza in 1979, thousands of women have become more integrated in both the workforce and in social and political organizations.
Seven years after the revolutionary victory, many more women now work outside the home. This is due to the war, which has mobilized tens of thousands of men, and to the grave economic crisis that is threatening the country. Women represent 35% of agricultural workers. The report underlines that in some regions, "Women constitute the bulk of the workforce" and are doing work that has until now been a male preserve. In the towns, especially the capital Managua, women are in a majority in women are in a majority in the textile, garment, canning and pharmaceutical industries. In many factories in these sectors, they represent 80% of the workers. A much larger number work in the "informal sector" (see article). 70% of shopkeepers are women.
The report deals at length with the obstacles encountered by women, notably the strain of the double workday. In an underdeveloped country like Nicaragua, which in addition has glaring shortages, the hours spent on domestic work necessary to reproduce the family weigh heavily, since these tasks are far from being shared. In a family where the man and woman both work outside the home women spend 56% of their time on domestic work as opposed to 9% for men. In the countryside the women's total work time is currently up to a total of 18 hours inside and outside the home, while in the towns it is 16 hours.
### Discrimination at work
Examining the relationship of women to work, the report finds discrimination in training and promotion, and towards pregnant women.
Because abortion is illegal in Nicaragua, many women die each year after backstreet abortions. What is more, it is the main cause of maternal deaths -making up 27% of the total. The majority of women who have had backstreet abortions already have children, and only 23% of them are single. The report points out that: "This reality contradicts the commonly held belief that abortion is resorted to by single women not wanting to suffer social ostra-
The agrarian reform established by the revolution, and the growth of the cooperative movement, has laid the basis for equality in the countryside, but much needs to be done for this equality to become a reality. Half of the cooperatives have women members, but still women only represent 6% of the total membership. The idea still prevails "that they 'help' their husband with agricultural work, and that they are not themselves full producers. The men are reluctant for their wives to become full members of the cooperative, and they are not very motivated by the growth of women's involvement in social management."
Laws inherited from Somoza
Notable progress has been made where agricultural workers are concerned, even it their participation in trade unions is still far from being equal with that of men. They explain that this is because of the extra work that childcare and responsibility for domestic work gives them. But even if these obstacles remain, 81% of women agricultural workers are now unionized.
In its conclusions, the report stresses that some women's problems originate in the laws inherited from the Somoza dictatorship. "The old laws and the laws established by the revolution coexist, creating obstacles and contradictions which prevent them from being resolved." Thus, although numerous centres for battered women have been set up since the revolution, this violence against women is not punishable by law. 51% of women turning for help to the Women's Offices set up by AMNLAE are fleeing domestic violence. They also go there for abortions: "The criminalization of abortion is a danger for the health of women. It increases female mortality, puts a strain on hospital budgets and is in flagrant contradiction with government action to improve conditions of health in the country."
Finally, report concludes on the necessity for a revision of the government's policy towards women. "The war, the economic crisis and the social changes in the country have changed the role of Nicaraguan women. Today they assume enormous responsibilities and are increasingly integrated in the whole production process. But until now no policy has redefined the role traditionally given to women in society. The traditional sexual division of labour has not been challenged, no more than the ideology which assigns a role to each of the sexes.
"It is necessary for women, and for the defence of the revolution as a whole, to overcome these inequalities between the sexes, to resolve the problems of women in order to construct a new society. The transformation of the social structures, which this inequality perpetuates, requires changes in policy, in civil and criminal law, the system of land ownership, the Work Code, ideology, attitudes and personal relationships."
International Viewpoint 23 March 1987
of themselves and of their work, are united by a feeling of solidarity and exhibit various degrees of consciousness and collaboration with the revolutionary process.
All these women belong to a Sandinista Defence Committee (CDS), and the great majority of them stand revolutionary guard duty. They take their personal problems or those of the association to which they belong to the CDS, since all of them are organized in accordance with their stock in trade - meat, dairy products, perishables or groceries. Contradictions of an economy in transition
Some of the peddlars were in the militia, but they are not active for the moment. Nonetheless, they express their willingness to do active duty in the event of an invasion of Managua. For now, they express their solidarity with the Batallones de Lucha Irregular [army units specialized in combating the contras], and take part in the cotton-picking brigades. Some of them think that if a different sort of attitude were taken towards the less conscious merchants, more peddlars could be won to the revolution.
Without wanting to get into the theoretical debate on the informal sector, we agree with Redondo that the recent expansion of this sector in Nicaragua reflects the contradictions of an economy in transition. Therefore, more than attempting to offer conclusions, the need is to continue and deepen interdisciplinary analyses in order to confront the problems of this sector.
Despite the advantages that women enjoy in petty commerce (higher incomes, access - in principle - to social benefits, a level of organization) concrete problems persist, such as the lack of childcare facilities, difficulties in obtaining medical services (since they cannot wait in the Health Centers), alcoholism of husbands and sons in law, physical abuse and the inability to offer another alternative when children do not want to study and spend the day in the
(AMNLAE) and the market administration could be a step forward toward breaking from the prevailing economic outlook. An attempt has been made to advance with other sectors - workers, peasants, and so on, but not with women as a whole, who lack security in all economic activities and have their own special problems.
In this way, not only is the creativity and fortitude of this extensive sector being wasted, but in the long run we are running the risk that this potential power will take on a negative form for the revolution.
Despite the economic crisis, these
İNTERN MARXIS THE SPRING 1987 issue of the nal of the Fourth International, now available. It contains the
Waiting at a health clinic in Managua (DR)
organizations have made it possible to overcome, to some extent, the competition and marked individualism typical of women workers in the informal sector in other countries such as Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico, for example, where these activities have helped to fragment the working class and its organizations.
A better knowledge of the
Nicaraguan informal sector will not only benefit the revolutionary process but offer another perspective for the work of academics, leaders and women throughout the continent. ATiENAL • REVIEW English language theoretical jourInternational Marxist Review, is following articles:
to study and spend the day in the market.
As one of the peddlars pointed out, "being in the market is not the same thing as being of the market." This phrase sums up the problems of the peddlars and points to the need to offer overall solutions. The answers involve not only the women and their families, but have a greater social impact.
A joint effort among the peddlars, the Ministry of Internal Trade, the Nicaraguan Women's Association
• Women and work in Western Europe - Jacqueline Heinen • The ideological crisis of the Italian workers' movement -• Italy: discussion between Democrazia Proletaria and the LCR Livio Maitan • Crisis in the PLO - Document of the Fourth International • Bloody conflict in Yemen — Salah Jaber • Anti-apartheid struggles and class struggles - Claude Gabriel • Workers' and farmers' government - Steve Bloom Available from PEC, 2 rue Richard Lenoir, 93108 Montreuil, France (please mark envelopes clearly "IMR"). Individual copies £2.50/$5. Subscriptions for 3 issues: Surface mail all countries £8.50/$14/90FF; Airmail Europe £8.50/100FF; Airmail outside Europe $18. Cheques to "PEC". Bank transfers to PEC, BNP Robespierre, Acct 230179/90. Postal transfers to PEC, CCP No. 2 322 42T Paris.
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International Viewpoint 23 March 1987